Jillian’s is FUN! Community Blog

Making it our own with long lines for Jake’s Burger

I am not too sure if many of you have heard of Pink’s Hot Dog in Los Angeles but, it is one of the most well known small town eateries in the United States known for their hot dogs. They are known for their long lines late at night for hot dogs. Well, Pink’s has finally made their match in Pasadena. Their competitor is Jake’s! Wow, this past Saturday night was a special night. The Rose Bowl hosted a friendly soccer match between LA Galaxy and Barcelona FC. Their was an estimate of 90,000 people to attend the game. So, we were very prepared for this day planning ahead. Great planning came with great success, total sales for the day were well over $9k and for the figure that were all proud of total food sales were over $5K.  Well sold over 650 build your own burgers for the day. That is a lot of beef! I have to thank all the great staff and management team members for doing a great job! I would have to say the greatest thing to see was a huge line outside our doors for people about 40 deep waiting to eat our burgers. I over heard a couple say, “Wow its busy in here! I can understand the wait with so many people and, I have to say it was worth the wait. I have never had a burger like this. I would wait for 3 hours just to wait for the single taste of a Jake’s Burger.”

Jaime

Measuring your P-Mix

Working on a side project for Jake on how the new menu is working for us, I have been using our P-Mix to find out and this what I have found out for using our new menu for a year….

In one year, we have used 13,388 lbs. of ground beef we sold in burgers that is an equivalent of 2 school buses.

In one year, we have created 196 gallons of chili that is 20 full tanks of gas for an average car.

For the amount of burgers sold, we have sold 52,170 that is 26,085 feet of burgers if you were to line the burgers up side by side, which is almost the size of 3 golden gate bridges, 72 Rose Bowl Football fields and is the distance of 4.94 miles.
 

Jaime

Jake’s making a monster opportunity out of a hand sized monster!!!!

You probably have seen those crazy eating competitions on the food network and tv, from huge pie eating contest or to eating hot dogs till you explode. At Jake’s, we try to bring that same kind of commroidtry and competition with the flare of our burgers. Speaking with Jake last  “Wow, its great to see how much attention we get with our Monster Burger displayed on our window I have been only standing here watching for no more than 2 minutes and 25 guests walking by had to stop and simply look at the burger. There were many people who even stood, posed, and took pictures with the massive burger.” said Jake. Jake and I agreed using the monster burger display we generate an extra $200 in food sales because it looks so good! So, the following day Ray and I were discussing club ideas and our two servers Jason an Lincoln, came to us saying, “Someone has accepted the Jake’s challenge.” His name was Jeremy he said ” That burger looks pretty good I think I could eat it.” I replied, “All right you got it! If your able to finish this challenge you will be the first!” He accepted the Jake’s Challenge. The parameters of this challenge is that you must complete the entire burger of 5 patties 5 pieces of american cheese, and 10 pieces of bacon on a standard Jake’s Burger build in 10 minutes. Jeremy had started on a good pace eating meat first in quarters then eating the bread. ” Wow! this burger is so good but, its fresh its burning my mouth from mouth for being so hot.” He said laughing. His friends shouting “Shut up and eat you only have four minutes left!” At exactly 9:59 he ate his last piece of the Monster he was the pioneer of the Jake Challenge. He ate about 2.35 # of mouth watering goodness! “I never knew something so good can make you so full!” Jeremy laughed. As his reward we bought his burger and gave him a filled up Lucky Seven card stamped for another burger. Already, word of mouth has started and people wanting to break Jeremy’s record! That’s why at Jake’s we can take something as simple and a delicious traditional hamburger into a monster of free advertising of word of mouth!

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Jaime

Jake’s Cooks make it their own…Making perfection…

The warmth of Southern California has come once again to the street of Colorado.  You can see the many new faces and visitors of Pasadena walking up and down Colorado looking for a quick bite to eat. Then the smell finally hits them, the intense stong smell of the best burger of Pasadena Jake’s! It has been great to see such a turn around I’ve had with my cooks. We had a very strong amount of food sales in December around 9K a week but with their hard work, dedication to small detail, helping each other out, and most importantly passion for the love of the food they make we are averaging just short of 15k. “It takes a lot of time and planning to work in our kitchen.” say Everado Patino. “At first we use to laugh at Jaime about how much we should plan ahead and organize ourselves in the kitchen like office work or the military like it wouldn’t pay off but, when you have the cafe filled with customers wanting to eat “my” burger we have to keep our guard up and give them our best.” I have them constantly working with the tools I used in my training we have become legends when we use our Lettuce system we love the p-mix because we have the correct gauge on how much we need to prep and order. We also love the Kitchen Financials because we all sit together and organize the best times to fit the schedule and how much to prep. Yet I may have shown them a few tricks here and there with the Lettuce program, they impressed me with what they gave me this following week. My cooks have made their own daily cleaning program. They worked on what was the best time to get the kitchen clean to “our” standards. I was very impressed what they came up with and how dedicated they have been on getting it done; especially with our new dish machine and the installation of Butler Chemicals. Their doubled efforts have carried on another trend another perfect score from the Health Department. Now their next goal is to be the best burger in Southern California. And I believe to the fullest they will do it and do so much more!

Jaime�

Award winning karaoke at its finest……only at Jake’s

On these chilly nights we have been having in Pasadena only the warmth of our fiery and hearty old fashion chilly could keep up with the daily travelers of Pasadena until one night. All the lights were lit, the stage was set and people were ready to party like no other. It was a Thursday night, one to remember, one night to start for a brighter future our guests. The suspense was like no other for our first Karaoke Competition night. What started to be only one or two names wanting to join turned out to be 32 people. Jimmy B. was on fire getting the crowd going and the emphatic cheers of their favorite songs being sung by Karaoke Heroes. You can hear the latest hits from Chris Brown and No Doubt to Smokey Robinson and Blondie it was intense. Even Simon couldnt cut a knife into our crowd for being so energetic and singing along. Plus, great drinks made by our infamous Jake’s bartenders kept the crowd wanting more. Even our famous Paddy-O came out to sing “Comedown” by Bush. With the patient waiting we had our winner, he was from the newly founded Pasadena Karaoke group who were looking for a place to perform. They said’ ” We have to thank Ray and all the Jake’s staff for putting together such a great event. We think we found our home, Jake’s is our place to be!” Ever since that night Karaoke has been the place to be in Pasadena and I thinks its going to be that way for quite awhile.

Jaime

Embracing Opportunity! Jake’s Gets a boost from Kickball!

This New Year’s Eve party had a boost from some important guests of ours. As we moved close to New Year’s Eve, I was contacted by an individual that plays in the kickball league that we host on Friday’s here. He wanted 2 tickets to our New Year’s Eve Extravaganza!. I asked him, “What about your teammates”? I told him that If he could get 10 of them to come, I would give him his ticket for free. Within 48 Hours. I had 8 members of his team and 5 from 2 other teams buying tickets! Wow! A little Promotion always goes a long way. They had a great time and told me that they couldn’t wait until their next season!

Ray D

N.Y.E in the City of Roses

Pasadena’s New Years Extravaganza was a smash hit. The night was filled with locals who looked to Jake’s to help them bring in the New Year west coast style. The vibe in the club was awesome throughout the evening. LA’s premier DJ-C-Jay kept the crowd moving all night, with a mix of Hip-Hop, 80’s Flash Backs, Reggae, Electro and Latin Vibes. Our guests had a great time and vowed to return next year. Only 364 more days!

Don’t miss out on the next be party at Jake’s. Be there, or be ……… well you know.

Jakes pulls it of again!

 Thursday nights is Karaoke here at Jake’s. What better time to up sell than a day with a full bar of drinkers?  At 10:30 the bar was full of singers and drinkers. We decided to make some extra revenue by making shooters and offering them to guests for $3. 

D’Ann (Cocktail Server) jumped on it with enthusiasm selling the first 15 shots before she even got to the billiards room. We then made 15 more and those were gone almost as fast. Through the night we made three rounds and made an extra $135 in revenue. Later, a guest came to the bar and asked the bartender if he could make him 4 of those great shots that the cocktail server was selling. Of course we complied and this guest came back for 1 more round!  These opportunities are all around. All you have to do is get creative and take advantage of situations that can become profitable! Great Job Bar staff!

Ray D

Jammin through the Holidays at Jake’s

Jake’s is known for a great burger, a cocktail or beer, watch the game, and play some pool. Between, Friday & Sunday we had six holiday parties. We have taken “banquets” to a new level at Jake’s.  What FUN! What a Staff!  Execution of these events was stupendous!  From the initial guest contact & booking, food preparation, organization, buffet setup, decorations and pre-shift meetings. Team Jake’s Embraced Opportunity! The Café was jamming and the Bar was live.  Managers were cooking, assisting and communicating with staff, interacting with guests and doing what we do as managers to keep it all in line. The staff was on point making sure we made our Guests Fun Our Business! Serving, cleaning, up selling, promoting our New Year’s Eve Party, and fulfilling our guests requests and satisfaction. Team Jake’s has brought out the best in our guests abilities to have FUN, FUN, FUN!  - Ray